And Paul replied, “For whatever reason, Rakoth did not want him to live. Jennifer says Darien is random.”
Brendel shook his head. “What does that mean? I am afraid, Pwyll, very greatly afraid.”
They could hear Dari laughing as he hunted for skipping stones. Paul said, “No one who has ever lived, surely, can ever have been so poised between Light and Dark.” And then, as Brendel made no reply, he said again, hearing the doubt and the hope, both, in his own voice, “Rakoth did not want him to live.”
“For whatever reason,” Brendel repeated.
It was mild by the lake. The waters were ruffled but not choppy. Dari skipped a stone five times and turned, smiling, to see if Paul had been watching him. They both had.
“Weaver lend us light,” Brendel said.
“Well done, little one,” said Paul. “Shall we show Brendel our path through the woods?”
“Finn’s path,” said Dari and set off, leading them.
From within the cottage Vae watched them go. Paul, she saw, was dark, and the lios alfar’s hair gleamed silver in the light, but Darien was golden as he went into the trees.
Paul had always been planning to come back alone with a question to ask, but it seemed to have worked out otherwise.
As they came to the place where the trees of the lake copse began to merge with the darker ones of the forest, Dari slowed, uncertainly. Gracefully, Brendel swept forward and swung him lightly up to his shoulders. In silence, then, Paul walked past both of them as once he had walked past three men at night, and near to this place. Carrying his head very high, feeling the throb of power already, he came into the Godwood for the second time.
It was daylight, and winter, but it was dark in Mórnirwood among the ancient trees, and Paul found himself vibrating inwardly like a tuning fork. There were memories. He heard Brendel behind him, talking to the child, but they seemed very distant. What was close were the images: Ailell, the old High King, playing chess by candlelight; Kevin singing “Rachel’s Song”; this wood at night; music; Galadan and the dog; then a red full moon on new moon night, the mist, the God, and rain.
He came to the place where the trees formed a double row, and this, too, he remembered. There was no snow on the path, nor would there be, he knew; not so near the Tree. There was no music this time, and for all the shadows it was not night, but the power was there, it was always there, and he was part of it. Behind him, Brendel and the boy were silent now, and in silence Paul led them around a curve in the twin line of trees and into the glade of the Summer Tree. Which was as it had been, the night they bound him upon it.
There was dappled light. The sun was high and it shone down on the glade. He remembered how it had burned him a year ago, merciless in a blank, cloudless sky.
He put away his memories.
He said, “Cernan, I would speak with you,” and heard Brendel draw a shocked breath. He did not turn. Long moments passed. Then from behind a screen of trees surrounding the glade a god came forward.
He was very tall, long of limb and tanned a chestnut brown. He wore no clothing at all. His eyes were brown like those of a stag, and lightly he moved, like a stag, and the horns on his head, seven-tined, were those of a stag as well. There was a wildness to him, and an infinite majesty, and when he spoke there was that in his voice which evoked all the dark forests, untamed.
”I am not to be summoned so,” he said, and it seemed as though the light in the glade had gone dim.
“By me you are,” said Paul calmly. “In this place.”
Even as he spoke there came a muted roll of thunder. Brendel was just behind him. He was aware of the child, alert and unafraid, walking now about the perimeter of the glade.
“You were to have died,” Cernan said. Stern and even cruel he looked. “I bowed to honor the manner of your death.”
“Even so,” said Paul. There was thunder again. The air seemed tangibly charged with power. It crackled. The sun shone, but far off, as if through a haze. “Even so,” Paul repeated. “But I am alive and returned hither to this place.”
Thunder again, and then an ominous silence.
“What would you, then?” Cernan said.
Paul said in his own voice, “You know who the child is?”
“I know he is of the andain,” said Cernan of the Beasts. “And so he belongs to Galadan, to my son.”
“Galadan,” Paul said harshly, “belongs to me. When next we meet, which will be the third time.”
Again a silence. The horned god took a step forward. “My son is very strong,” he said. “Stronger than us, for we may not intervene.” He paused. And then, with a new note in his voice, said, “He was not always as he is.”
So much pain, Paul thought. Even in this. Then he heard, bitter and implacable, the voice of Brendeclass="underline" “He killed Ra-Termaine at Andarien. Would you have us pity him?”
“He is my son,” said Cernan.
Paul stirred. So much darkness around him with no raven voices to guide. He said, still doubting, still afraid, “We need you, Woodlord. Your counsel and your power. The child has come into his strength, and it is red. There is a choice of Light we all must make, but his is gravest of all, I fear, and he is but a child.” After a pause, he said it: “He is Rakoth’s child, Cernan.”
There was a silence. “Why?” the god whispered in dismay. “Why was he allowed to live?”
Paul became aware of murmuring among the trees. He remembered it. He said, “To make the choice. The most important choice in all the worlds. But not as a child; his power has come too soon.” He heard Brendel breathing beside him.
“It is only as a child,” Cernan said, “that he can be controlled.”
Paul shook his head. “There is no controlling him, nor could there ever be. Woodlord, he is a battlefield and must be old enough to know it!” Saying the words, he felt them ring true. There was no thunder, but a strange, anticipatory pulsing ran within him. He said, “Cernan, can you take him through to his maturity?”
Cernan of the Beasts lifted his mighty head, and for the first time something in him daunted Paul. The god opened his mouth to speak—
They never heard what he meant to say.
From the far side of the glade there came a flash of light, blinding almost, in the charged dimness of that place.
“Weaver at the Loom!” Brendel cried.
“Not quite,” said Darien.
He came out from behind the Summer Tree, and he was no longer a child. Naked as Cernan, he stood, but fair-haired as he had been from birth, and not so tall as was the god. He was about the height, Paul realized, with a numbing apprehension, that Finn had been, and looked to be the same age as well.
“Dari…” he began, but the nickname didn’t fit any more, it didn’t apply to this golden presence in the glade. He tried again. “Darien, this is what I brought you for, but how did you do it alone?”
He was answered with a laugh that turned apprehension to terror. “You forgot something,” said Darien. “You all did. Such a simple thing as winter led you to forget. We are in an oak grove and Midsummer’s Eve is coming on! With such power to draw upon, why should I need the horned god to come into my power?”
“Not your power,” Paul replied as steadily as he could, watching Darien’s eyes, which were still blue. “Your maturity. You are old enough now to know why. You have a choice to make.”
“Shall I go ask my father,” Darien cried, “what to do?”
And with a gesture he torched the trees around the glade into a circle of fire, red like the red flash of his eyes.
Paul staggered back, feeling the rush of heat as he had not felt the cold. He heard Cernan cry out, but before the god could act, Brendel stepped forward.